African mobile VoD platform Tuluntulu boasts user growth

New African Video on Demand (VoD) platform Tuluntulu is turning heads with its services. The company offers African-focusses content to a global audience and has received international recognition in the process.

Since launching in 2014, the startup was not only a finalist in the MTN App of the Year Awards 2015, but also won the Frost & Sullivan 2015 South African Video-on-Demand Customer Value Leadership Award, Technology Top 100 Innovation award, and the Best African App AppsAfrica award. It was also selected by Unilever Foundry 50 as one of the top 50 startups in the world for 2015.

“While our key focus is to deliver a product that consumers in Africa will love and use regularly, awards provide recognition from the other stakeholders in the industry and as such are invaluable forms of feedback for our team. We are humbled and honoured to have been recognised by such a diverse range of awards organisations and institutions,” says Pierre van der Hoven, founder and CEO of Tuluntulu.

According to a press release sent to Ventureburn, the app has been downloaded over 335 000 times in 154 countries, with the most popular being South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya. To date, there have been over 10-million screen views, 2.1 million sessions, and over 84% returning users.

The platform features 20 24-hour a day channels from across the continent. Some of the offered programmes include AfricaSport4U, Al Jazeera, SABC Education, and Afridocs. It also features 13 streaming radio stations with the likes of CliffCentral. It also displays the channel’s Twitter feed, which allows for a live user and channel interaction.

“We have built a product and demonstrated some market traction. We now need to grow the reach (more downloads), monetize the business (more revenue), and improve the customers value proposition (more free content, new products and services),” adds van der Hoven.

Tuluntulu has been optimised for mobile networks with an average of 50MB per hour consumption rate. The app allows users to switch between high and low-quality video depending on their network.